Comments on: New Year message 2009 http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2008/12/31/new-year-message-2009/ Conservative Party Candidate for Wokingham Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:12:43 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Alan Wheatley http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2008/12/31/new-year-message-2009/#comment-29938 Alan Wheatley Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:15:12 +0000 http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/?p=2497#comment-29938 Happy New Year, John, and everyone else. I recommend 2009 happiness is not dependent on what happens in the Middle East, at least as far as Israel/Palestine is concerned. The "problem" goes back 3,000 years, and there are plenty of Israelis who cite from that long history in justification of contemporary activities, and plenty of Jews around the world who give sympathetic support. I can not see how a two-state solution will ever work as the more viable and credible a Palestinian state the less appeal it will have to the Israelis. So I think the best we can hope for is another year of containment and the hope that some genius will come up with an answer that will work. Happy New Year, John, and everyone else.

I recommend 2009 happiness is not dependent on what happens in the Middle East, at least as far as Israel/Palestine is concerned. The “problem” goes back 3,000 years, and there are plenty of Israelis who cite from that long history in justification of contemporary activities, and plenty of Jews around the world who give sympathetic support.

I can not see how a two-state solution will ever work as the more viable and credible a Palestinian state the less appeal it will have to the Israelis.

So I think the best we can hope for is another year of containment and the hope that some genius will come up with an answer that will work.

]]> By: APL http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2008/12/31/new-year-message-2009/#comment-29867 APL Thu, 01 Jan 2009 10:49:02 +0000 http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/?p=2497#comment-29867 backofanenvelopt: "ut it will mean we don’t need a vastly expensive system of space-based tracking of everyone’s car .." Sorry, we already have one. It's called Galileo and we already have satellites in orbit (at great expense ) which are really looking for something to do, and someone to pay for them. That thing will be vehicle tracking, that someone will be European motorists. Typical Socialists, duplicate a project someone else has already created, then make people pay for a service that they don't want and is already provided free by another service provider. backofanenvelopt: “ut it will mean we don’t need a vastly expensive system of space-based tracking of everyone’s car ..”

Sorry, we already have one. It’s called Galileo and we already have satellites in orbit (at great expense ) which are really looking for something to do, and someone to pay for them.

That thing will be vehicle tracking, that someone will be European motorists.

Typical Socialists, duplicate a project someone else has already created, then make people pay for a service that they don’t want and is already provided free by another service provider.

]]> By: Brian Tomkinson http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2008/12/31/new-year-message-2009/#comment-29866 Brian Tomkinson Thu, 01 Jan 2009 10:42:18 +0000 http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/?p=2497#comment-29866 Happy New Year! "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859 Happy New Year!

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859

]]> By: Matthew Reynolds http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2008/12/31/new-year-message-2009/#comment-29850 Matthew Reynolds Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:23:56 +0000 http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/?p=2497#comment-29850 I favor the old Howe -Thatcher remedy of raising VAT & cutting income tax ! Putting VAT up to 20% and cutting income tax by 3p to 17p while freezing public expenditure in real terms for two or three years would help a lot. For every £100 paid in basic rate tax a person would pay £15 less. By shifting taxation from direct to indirect and by restraining the size of government in the early 1980's the way was paved for an economic upswing. How about a rehash of successful policies from the 1980's rather than failed 1970's ideas that we are getting from Gordon Brown ? A dramatic 10% in all QUANGO budgets to fund deficit reduction of £10 billion coupled with an end to costly RDA's , ID Cards , New Deal and wasteful IT schemes coupled with a civil service recruitment freeze & a greater use of market forces to cut procurement costs would make sense. Also not giving tax credits to the wealthy , with-holding EU contributions until their accounts are signed off and replacing Job Seekers Allowance & Incapacity Benefit with one sort of payment designed to slash economic inactivity . Surely as John Redwood has proved you can cut public transport funding by using more private monies as an alternative ? The eventual aim should be over three years to slash the public money spent on QUANGO's by 30% by just ending many , merging a few and hiving some off so that they are not taxpayer funded and they just survive on the fees that they charge service users. The plan would be to save a huge amount of money so that you could stop public expenditure growing by more than inflation ( i.e. a real terms freeze ) to fund cutting the budget deficit while redirecting some monies towards the armed forces & pensioners. Pledging extra cash for defense and to lift more of the over 60's out of poverty and a balanced budget on the back of undoing Gordon Brown's failed public spending binge would in the present climate be morally right and politically popular. These are the policies we need to stop Big Government causing yet more economic ruin - by giving the taxpayer value for money by properly financing our brave armed services and taking pensioners out of poverty you would give people strong reasons for voting Conservative. Happy New Year John ! Thanks for the superb blog - it has been a joy to read ! I favor the old Howe -Thatcher remedy of raising VAT & cutting income tax ! Putting VAT up to 20% and cutting income tax by 3p to 17p while freezing public expenditure in real terms for two or three years would help a lot. For every £100 paid in basic rate tax a person would pay £15 less. By shifting taxation from direct to indirect and by restraining the size of government in the early 1980’s the way was paved for an economic upswing. How about a rehash of successful policies from the 1980’s rather than failed 1970’s ideas that we are getting from Gordon Brown ?

A dramatic 10% in all QUANGO budgets to fund deficit reduction of £10 billion coupled with an end to costly RDA’s , ID Cards , New Deal and wasteful IT schemes coupled with a civil service recruitment freeze & a greater use of market forces to cut procurement costs would make sense. Also not giving tax credits to the wealthy , with-holding EU contributions until their accounts are signed off and replacing Job Seekers Allowance & Incapacity Benefit with one sort of payment designed to slash economic inactivity . Surely as John Redwood has proved you can cut public transport funding by using more private monies as an alternative ?

The eventual aim should be over three years to slash the public money spent on QUANGO’s by 30% by just ending many , merging a few and hiving some off so that they are not taxpayer funded and they just survive on the fees that they charge service users.

The plan would be to save a huge amount of money so that you could stop public expenditure growing by more than inflation ( i.e. a real terms freeze ) to fund cutting the budget deficit while redirecting some monies towards the armed forces & pensioners. Pledging extra cash for defense and to lift more of the over 60’s out of poverty and a balanced budget on the back of undoing Gordon Brown’s failed public spending binge would in the present climate be morally right and politically popular.

These are the policies we need to stop Big Government causing yet more economic ruin – by giving the taxpayer value for money by properly financing our brave armed services and taking pensioners out of poverty you would give people strong reasons for voting Conservative.

Happy New Year John ! Thanks for the superb blog – it has been a joy to read !

]]> By: Graham Eardley http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2008/12/31/new-year-message-2009/#comment-29849 Graham Eardley Wed, 31 Dec 2008 20:17:56 +0000 http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/?p=2497#comment-29849 Perhaps a Swedish style disclosure law in some form or another for the banks will be passed by HM Government in 2009 to calm market fears although this could make things a lot worse! Well with the pound set to go below the Euro this should lead to an increase in invisible earnings from all the Euro zone tourists that we should have. (Trouble is the downturn I suspect will be more catastrophic in Euroland than here and so I doubt we will see the visitors in any great numbers) Also the strength of the Euro should hopefully lead to the currencies collapse perhaps not in 2009 but with any luck a lot sooner than later? I hope too that we get though 2009 and look forward to reading your blog in the New Year, John Perhaps a Swedish style disclosure law in some form or another for the banks will be passed by HM Government in 2009 to calm market fears although this could make things a lot worse!

Well with the pound set to go below the Euro this should lead to an increase in invisible earnings from all the Euro zone tourists that we should have. (Trouble is the downturn I suspect will be more catastrophic in Euroland than here and so I doubt we will see the visitors in any great numbers)

Also the strength of the Euro should hopefully lead to the currencies collapse perhaps not in 2009 but with any luck a lot sooner than later?

I hope too that we get though 2009 and look forward to reading your blog in the New Year, John

]]> By: mikestallard http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2008/12/31/new-year-message-2009/#comment-29838 mikestallard Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:35:02 +0000 http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/?p=2497#comment-29838 I want to thank our host for telling the truth, for actually bothering to read the rubbish that we all seem to write and, finally, to be so easy to understand. I am personally convinced that this will be the last few months of that monstrous fraud Mr Brown and that, behind the good manners of the Tory front bench, there lurks some true talent which, in this vital year, will steer our battered ship of state through the icebergs. Happy New Year! I want to thank our host for telling the truth, for actually bothering to read the rubbish that we all seem to write and, finally, to be so easy to understand.
I am personally convinced that this will be the last few months of that monstrous fraud Mr Brown and that, behind the good manners of the Tory front bench, there lurks some true talent which, in this vital year, will steer our battered ship of state through the icebergs.
Happy New Year!

]]> By: StevenL http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2008/12/31/new-year-message-2009/#comment-29837 StevenL Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:30:45 +0000 http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/?p=2497#comment-29837 I really don't have a New Year message other than to wish John and everyone that makes this blog a good place to visit all the best for 2009. Bottoms up! I really don’t have a New Year message other than to wish John and everyone that makes this blog a good place to visit all the best for 2009.

Bottoms up!

]]> By: no one http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2008/12/31/new-year-message-2009/#comment-29833 no one Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:30:12 +0000 http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/?p=2497#comment-29833 happy new year reading the medical blogs it looks like the bed shortage in the nhs is going to be a much more immediate life threatening crisis this winter, managers ringing round individual GP's beginning them not to admit patients to hospital, we really have reaching the point when somebody should be saying the emporer has no clothes and we need decent health provision for the british people not this sub 3rd world nonsense happy new year

reading the medical blogs it looks like the bed shortage in the nhs is going to be a much more immediate life threatening crisis this winter, managers ringing round individual GP’s beginning them not to admit patients to hospital, we really have reaching the point when somebody should be saying the emporer has no clothes and we need decent health provision for the british people not this sub 3rd world nonsense

]]> By: rugfish http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2008/12/31/new-year-message-2009/#comment-29828 rugfish Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:38:03 +0000 http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/?p=2497#comment-29828 Best of luck to you Mr Redwood, and to all Redwoodian's. Morgan the women's clothing chain has just gone into administration. The FTSE 100 has lost 30% of its value this year. Woolworths failed to keep its head above the pond it lay in for nearly 100 years. The auto industry was knackered by recoiling customers, vilified by government for adding waste to our environment and taxed up to their eyeballs. Half the pubs have been shut as much by government as if Brown had gone round himself and done it. Fags are up, wines and spirits and beers are up, holiday operators next year will likely topple like ten pins, their building a runway we don't need, not building nuclear power plants we do need, not cutting tax which we do need yet putting tax on stuff we don't need. Meanwhile, we're all off to the European Federation to have our eyes taken out and to hang draw and quarter our democracy, the president of America would like to hold a meeting sometime in April on the economic crisis, The UK, Europe, Russia, China and America are throwing people out of work twenty to the dozen, all our homes are going to be as good as a pig in a poke without buyers, the non-elected Prime Minister won't call an election because he prefers salmon sandwiches as opposed to dog meat like the rest of us, and the leader of the opposition says "People are looking to us for hope in these dark days and we must be ready to offer it but fails ( nay refuses ), to say HOW, and then there's YOU Mr Redwood, who shines a torchlight and points a way forward, which many would like to follow as it is a sensible path we can see ahead of us. Now the BBC incidentally is plugging the Euro and catigating British shopkeepers for not taking foreign currency ! ( Watch that space ). But apart from all that, I am a natural optimist too so I'm hoping there's no escalation of war in the middle east to effect the oil price. Happy New Year ! Best of luck to you Mr Redwood, and to all Redwoodian’s.
Morgan the women’s clothing chain has just gone into administration.
The FTSE 100 has lost 30% of its value this year.
Woolworths failed to keep its head above the pond it lay in for nearly 100 years. The auto industry was knackered by recoiling customers, vilified by government for adding waste to our environment and taxed up to their eyeballs. Half the pubs have been shut as much by government as if Brown had gone round himself and done it. Fags are up, wines and spirits and beers are up, holiday operators next year will likely topple like ten pins, their building a runway we don’t need, not building nuclear power plants we do need, not cutting tax which we do need yet putting tax on stuff we don’t need. Meanwhile, we’re all off to the European Federation to have our eyes taken out and to hang draw and quarter our democracy, the president of America would like to hold a meeting sometime in April on the economic crisis, The UK, Europe, Russia, China and America are throwing people out of work twenty to the dozen, all our homes are going to be as good as a pig in a poke without buyers, the non-elected Prime Minister won’t call an election because he prefers salmon sandwiches as opposed to dog meat like the rest of us, and the leader of the opposition says “People are looking to us for hope in these dark days and we must be ready to offer it but fails ( nay refuses ), to say HOW, and then there’s YOU Mr Redwood, who shines a torchlight and points a way forward, which many would like to follow as it is a sensible path we can see ahead of us.

Now the BBC incidentally is plugging the Euro and catigating British shopkeepers for not taking foreign currency ! ( Watch that space ).

But apart from all that, I am a natural optimist too so I’m hoping there’s no escalation of war in the middle east to effect the oil price.

Happy New Year !

]]> By: backofanenvelope http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2008/12/31/new-year-message-2009/#comment-29827 backofanenvelope Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:36:23 +0000 http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/?p=2497#comment-29827 Well, lets look on the bright side. Motoring for instance. Due to the rise in the price of petrol, motorists are driving less. Of course, any fule could have forecast this - but not the ones in government. Not only will this reduce pollution, but it will mean we don't need a vastly expensive system of space-based tracking of everyone's car. Good for civil liberties. Nor do we need higher VED taxes. Just adjust the fuel tax to stabilize the prices at a level that reduces petrol consumption. Housing. As the price of houses drops, first-time buyers will be able to afford the damn things. And people with mortgages are using the reduction in interest rates to generate a more rapid pay off of their mortgage debt. The banks are ignoring the clots in Whitehall and are tightening up their loan requirements, stopping people going into unsustainable debt. Our oversupply of foreigners will solve itself as they go home. My garden is looking OK and my shoulder is nearly better. Happy New Year! Well, lets look on the bright side. Motoring for instance. Due to the rise in the price of petrol, motorists are driving less. Of course, any fule could have forecast this – but not the ones in government. Not only will this reduce pollution, but it will mean we don’t need a vastly expensive system of space-based tracking of everyone’s car. Good for civil liberties. Nor do we need higher VED taxes. Just adjust the fuel tax to stabilize the prices at a level that reduces petrol consumption.

Housing. As the price of houses drops, first-time buyers will be able to afford the damn things. And people with mortgages are using the reduction in interest rates to generate a more rapid pay off of their mortgage debt.

The banks are ignoring the clots in Whitehall and are tightening up their loan requirements, stopping people going into unsustainable debt.

Our oversupply of foreigners will solve itself as they go home.

My garden is looking OK and my shoulder is nearly better.

Happy New Year!

]]> By: Stuart Fairney http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2008/12/31/new-year-message-2009/#comment-29826 Stuart Fairney Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:35:05 +0000 http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/?p=2497#comment-29826 From one 'Gaz-ox' to another, happy new year. If there is one tiny bright spot in the middle east, if I know the Israelis, they will be through before Mr Obama takes the oath of office. At least that round will be over. You were pretty much spot-on with your economic prognosis and set of recommendations all year. May I finish with a quote from a man, I almost never quote, Mr Anthony Blair "It is true that we had ten years of record growth when I was prime minister. I have, unfortunately, come to the conclusion that it was luck" (in a lecture to Yale University: source the ASI blog) Tony, the rest of us worked that out years ago.... From one ‘Gaz-ox’ to another, happy new year.

If there is one tiny bright spot in the middle east, if I know the Israelis, they will be through before Mr Obama takes the oath of office. At least that round will be over.

You were pretty much spot-on with your economic prognosis and set of recommendations all year.

May I finish with a quote from a man, I almost never quote, Mr Anthony Blair

“It is true that we had ten years of record growth when I was prime minister. I have, unfortunately, come to the conclusion that it was luck” (in a lecture to Yale University: source the ASI blog)

Tony, the rest of us worked that out years ago….

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